Virus
by JustAGirlNamedJEL
Summary: Tweek has come down with a dreadful fever. Or IS it just a fever?


Virus

Written by JEL

Third person P.O.V.

* * *

Tweek lay in between fresh laundered sheets, a newly squeezed class of orange juice just out of reach on the table at his bedside. All he had to do was yell for Mother, and she would come check his temperature. She'd put the back of her hand - or maybe a cooling rag - on her poor son's forehead, perhaps even stick a thermometer in his mouth. Tweek had come down with a dreadful fever, one that was agony at its peak. He'd rarely ever gotten sick, but when the time came that he did, it was awful.

He was thirteen, Tweek was. Had turned so in early March. But now it was mid-September, the land beginning to burn with autumn. Slivers of hot sun gleamed into the room through holes in his white shutter curtains. The room itself was ice cold, but still too hot for the young boy. His forehead, neck, arms, everything felt like fire, and sweat beading on many parts of his body showed the sensation.

Tweek had been in bed for many hours, when it had started happening. He had looked over to his left arm, because he'd felt numbness in his fingertips. Then his hand began to change. It fluttered on its own, for Tweek knew he didn't do that. Then his hand stop, as if resting. His eyes widen when he saw it changing color. Tweek had wanted to scream, but for fear of triggering some event, he remained silent.

His mother came to check on him on the strike of noon. She gently tapped her child's chest like a little drum.

"How are you feeling, Tweek?" Mother said soothingly.

That sentence fixed itself in Tweek's mind. His thoughts touched and quickly pulled away from it in a pale terror. She didn't know how terrified just a simple question had stirred her son.

"Mom, my hand… it doesn't belong to me anymore..! This morning, it changed..! Changed into something else..! Please, change it back, Mom, please..!"

Tweek's mother kissed his damp head. "It's okay, Tweek. It's just the fever. Sometimes people can hallucinate when they have a fever. It's just because you're dehydrated, dear. I'll run and get you a cold glass of water, and put your rag back under some more ice."

"But..! I SAW it change..! Then it-it camouflaged itself, so you couldn't see..!" Tweek objected.

"Don't be silly. You've just had a little fever dream. You'll feel better once you get some sleep, I promise." Mother exited, a rag and half empty glass of orange juice in hands.

The house fell silent after she'd left the room. Tweek looked through the holes in his shutters, his back still planted firmly on the bed. He could see the sun was shining, lighting up the blue September sky. It was almost like a whole other world lay on the other side of Tweek's tiny, sick one. The wind blew in from a tiny crack in his window, and yellow-orange leaves glided on the luke air. Out of pure, unhealthy, nervous habit, he bit at his fingernails. On his right hand. Not his left. A clock ticked from his opposite wall, it telling him it was twelve ten in the afternoon. Oh, how slow this day was going.

His left hand hadn't changed back. It was still something else, even though it looked the same.

But, by four o'clock, a numbness filled his right fingertips. Then his hand moved on its own again. Then both his legs. They pulsed and shifted, cell by cell. They were beating together, like a heart. His fingernails turned blue, then red. It took an hour for them to change completely, then after a full five minutes of being different, they seemed to of appeared normal. It looked just like an ordinary hand, even ordinary legs. But they weren't ordinary. It wasn't Tweek's hand anymore, and it certainly wasn't his legs. He watched on in fascinated horror until he fell into an exhausted sleep.

Mother brought him soup by six thirty. He didn't try to touch it.

"I don't have any hands…" He said, eyes shut.

"Your hands look perfectly good."

"No!" Tweek wailed. "My hands and legs are all gone! I feel like I have stumps! Oh, Mama, Mama, hold me, please! I'm so scared!"

His mom petted his head softly. "Oh, now hush, Tweek. Don't be so dramatic. Your limbs are fine, I assure you."

"Mama, please… call a doctor… I'm so sick..!" Tweek hoped using a baby-ish term like 'Mama' might help her see how desperate he was.

"You don't need a doctor, all you have is a fever. Once you wake up in the morning, you'll feel all better."

"Because I might be dead in the morning..!"

"You won't be dead. You'll be cured. Now, if you need anything more, tell me. I'm leaving for the store soon, and I'll get you anything you want."

Tweek sighed in frustration. He turned his body on his side, and closed his eyes.

"I see. Try to eat your soup. If you get a little food in your tummy, then you might not have a heart burn later."

"Mom..?" He open his eyes.

"Yes, Tweek?"

"I read this book once, about petrified trees… wood turning to stone… It was about how trees fell and rotted and minerals got in and built up and they looked like trees, but they weren't, they were stone…"

"Well, that sounds very interesting."

"And… and I was thinking… do germs ever get big..? I mean, in integrated science class, they told us about single-celled organisms, amoebas and things, and how millions of years ago they'd gotten together to form the first body… They'd decided to come together, and more and more cells got together and got bigger, and finally, maybe, there was a fish, and then they attached and took over that fish, and here we are… We're all a bunched of cells put together to form a body… all because organisms took over a fish… What if - like back then - a bunch and bunch of microbes wanted to take over another big organism..?"

"What are you getting at, son?"

"… What if a bunch of microbes have decided to take over ME?" His pale hands pushed against his chest.

"Take over you?"

"YES! Me, my hands, my legs, my body! What if a disease somehow knew how to kill a person and yet live after him?!"

"Tweek, it's the fever. Your imagining things. Although it is good your paying attention in class."

"But, Mom-"

"Tweek." Mother said harshly. "Listen to Mommy. She's seen these kinds of things before, she knows what she's talking about. You have a simple fever, that's it. It'll most likely be gone tomorrow, and then you can go to school. You're going to feel pretty silly when this is all done, if you keep on with this nonsense."

Tweek stare up at her, almost wanting to cry. Why hadn't his own mother believed him? Why didn't she see what Tweek saw?

Mother continued. "And speaking of school, I want you to talk to all your teachers and get extra credit work to make up for the day you missed."

He groaned, as most children would do at such news.

"You're in advanced classes because you worked hard, and if you start slipping now, you'll be put in regular classes. And you don't want to be put in regular classes, do you?"

"… No, ma'am…"

"Good boy. Now I've got to go to the store. Eat some soup, and get some sleep, please." Again, his mom left him to his silence.

* * *

At three in the morning, Tweek was still wide awake. The bed was damp under his head and back, his entire body feeling warm. Now he had no arms or legs, and his body was steadily changing as well. He didn't move, but stare at a vast and blank ceiling space with insane concentration. For a while he had screamed and cried, but now he lay weak and hoarse. Tweek was silent, gradually losing feeling in his torso. He could feel the walls of his body change, his organs shift, his lungs catch fire like burning bellows of strong alcohol on a pile of hay. The room had almost lighten up, the fire was so powerful.

Now he had no body. It was all gone. It was under him, but it was filled with an unknown pulse, liked he was filled with a heavy lethargic drug. It was as if a guillotine had neatly lopped off his head, it staying on a midnight pillow while the body below being to something else. The disease had eaten his body, and from that eating it had produced an exact replica. There was every crease, scar, and detail that his body had had, but it wasn't his body. It was nothing but a fancy duplicate.

"I'm dead…" Tweek whispered out to nobody but himself. "I've been killed, and it'll all be a disease, and no one will know…"

The warmth filled up to his neck, and into his cheeks. His lips burned, then his eyelids. It was like a yellow-orange leaf caught fire. He felt his head fill with a boiling mercury. His left eye shut without his permission. Tweek was blind in one eye. Enemy territory was all it was now. His tongue was gone, cut off. His cheek was numbed, lost. His ear stopped hearing, disappeared. It all belonged to something else. It was being born, this mineral thing replicating the wooden log, this disease replacing healthy cells.

Tweek was able to scream loud and sharply, just as his brain flooded down, the rest of his sight and hearing cut away. He was blind and deaf, all fire, all panic, all death.

* * *

The morning shine bright and clear, a brisk wind blowing across the young boy's face. He stood at his window, it wide open and he fully dressed. He heard his door click open as his mother walked through.

"Oh, feeling better today, Tweek? I see you were able to get out of bed." She smiled.

"I shall never be sick ever again, not in this life." He declared, not turning from the window.

"I hope not. My, and I see you even got dressed."

"Yes, I am very eager to go to school today. May I go, Mother?"

"Well, if you feel that better, I guess you should. Besides, you'll need to get your extra work, since you missed yesterday's classes."

"Oh, yes, yes, indeed! I will, Mother, I will! I only hope to see all the other children. I want to play with them, and shake hands with new friends and teachers, and pass back all the papers, and fetch pencils for everyone. Perhaps I shall even occupy myself with a companion's book, read it together, even. It all sounds so grand! May we go now, please?" His eyes shimmer with joy, and a giant smile show even more happiness.

"Just in a bit. You still have to eat breakfast first."

"Of course! May I do the dishes this morning, Mother?"

"Really? I suppose so."

"Oh! And Mother!" He walked closer to her.

"Yes, Tweek?"

"I love you." He hugged tightly around her, planting a prolonged kiss on her cheek.

"So sweet today, aren't you? I love you too."

"Let us proceed to breakfast, yes?"

"Yes. I made you some oatmeal."

"Oh, thank you so very much. Oh, and… what was that name you called me again?"

"What?" Mother became puzzled. "I called you nothing but Tweek."

"I suppose it's better than no name at all." He shrugged, following his mom downstairs.

Once down there, he decide to quickly take a different route. Before his mother could notice, he opened the bird cage, and put his hand in. He petted the yellow canary once.

He closed the cage, standing back. He watched the little bird ruffle its feathers, as if annoyed. It called out a bit, then fall to the bottom of the cage. He smiled as the canary squirmed helplessly, until it stopped moving completely.

"Tweek? What're you doing, son? Come eat breakfast, you can play with your bird later."

"Yes, ma'am. Coming, ma'am."

* * *

END

Inspired by the short story "Fever Dream" by Ray Bradburry


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